What would you guys do: shoplifters

[CaliWoodsman]

It's worth remembering that 99% of the people responding that you should have / they would have done something, wouldn't have done a thing. Talk is cheap.

 

[5MilesBack]

If everyone continues to do nothing, then we're part of the problem. I couldn't "do nothing" even if I wanted to. That's not who I am. I'll stay principled and will live with the consequences of that when that time comes. It's way past time to take our nation back. But everyone has to make their own decisions. And I'd also make darn sure that it was someone shoplifting and not just loading up their vehicle with stuff they bought before jumping into anything. And just because you intervene doesn't mean that you have to pummel the guy.

 

[FLATHEAD]

It would have been fun to stick a pocket knife in the tire sidewall.

Been thinking this for a while. Bet the Police would show up then.

 

[Jauwater]

Should have told your wife to go full Karen, and called the police in the mean time. I dunno what it is, but nobody can walk away from someone going full Karen. They gotta stay, and argue with the Karen, and even film it. These crooks would have fell right into the trap, and would have been pulling out their iPhones to film her about the time the cops would be pulling up. Sixty percent of the time the Full Karen technique works everytime

Sent from my SM-S506DL using Tapatalk

 

[NCSU_Lewis]

I worked retail at a North Face store in a mall in Raleigh, NC. We found cut off sensors daily and a few times had big organized operations come in and take a couple thousand $ worth of stuff. As was stated we were very strictly forbidden from doing anything. We could say something in the store, but no chance of anything after they left. The manager did follow a group out one time and got mall security to catch them.

Unfortunately I'm sure all these companies know how much they loose and pass the bill on increased MSRP.

As most have stated, probably best you didn't do anything unfortunately.

 

[Wrench]

Bank outside a restaurant is getting robbed. Cook sees what's up, runs to the getaway car and feeds it a knife in two sidewalls. Perp gets nabbed on foot, naked by the dogs all in sight of my pasture.

One of my team coaches pulls into Lowe's and sees a carload of tweakers. He waits for them to leave or go inside because he's got a ton of tools in his rig. He is heading inside when tweaks are running out. He tackles the first into the second and pull starts his face. Other dude ran.

Cops knew perp by name and told the perp his face looked pretty bad.

 

[3forks]

To add some minor details I left out earlier, there was a store employee already on the phone as this was happening.

The employee was a younger gal, and she was calm, but seemed to know the drill as she was standing right outside the store’s door and making a call. A couple of other employees were watching from the windows with other shoppers.

You couldn’t mistake what was happening because the guy carrying the shit out was trying to drag to wheeler shopping baskets full of merchandise and rushing to shove it into a car that pulled up to the curb right as he got outside. None of the merchandise was bagged, and he had dropped a couple of items on the ground as he rushing to get to the car. He just shoved the wheeled baskets into the back seat.

The car drove away, and I picked up a couple of items the thief dropped and handed them to the employee. I mentioned that there was a temp tag on the car, and the employee just said thanks.

Anyway, I remarked to my wife that she didn’t seemed too shocked by the event, and she reminded me that this is the second time she’d seen something like this happen. The first time was a couple of months or so ago at a Target store down the road.

Again, just frustrating knowing that this occurs in a relatively safe town and there’s very little that the store or law enforcement can do about it because of liability and a multitude of other reasons that others have mentioned.

 

[Steve from GA]

There is something you can and should do in this situation - and that's be a good witness. If you can, take pics, videos, mentally log descriptions of suspects, etc., all of which can potentially help while most others will naturally not be doing that. I TOTALLY agree that it's frustrating.

I once had someone steal my wallet from a locked gym locker. Within 30 minutes, they ran up $10k on my credit cards. I called the jewelry store where they spent most of it and explained what happened, and the lady who helped ring up the thieves said "Oh yeah, that sale was very suspicious.". Thanks, lady.

 

[zacattack]

Run up behind them and yell “I’m Batman!!”-

 

[long hunter]

Nothing, let them take what they want, turn the loss into the insurance company and then raise prices for the legit consumer, the insurance companies pass the loss on too the others they insure in increased insurance rates. See how it works.

 

[KoolBreeze]

Tough choice, I wouldn't fault you either way. But ultimately, your life and that of your family is worth more than any material goods belonging to the store. I get the sense o do something though, because I'd been the same way. The lawlessness has got to stop or our society is doomed. The question is how do we change the tide?

 

[gbflyer]

I dimed a domestic violence situation that was occurring outside an O’Reillys a few years ago. By the time the cops got there (fast, maybe 5 minutes) he had already told her twice…with the back of his hand…they were all lovey - dovy again and in the car. Wasn’t much they could do because she wouldn’t say anything…guess she must have just fell. I told my neighbor retired LE, feeling bad about it. he said never get involved in one of those. A DV call puts cops in a cold sweat, the person they are trying to help can be more dangerous to them than the one doing harm.

Point being that guy could have easily had an accomplice around. It ain’t no fun to get a pistol put in your face for some lifted sporting goods. Your wife was right.

 

[Beaveralum]

Despite how it made you feel you made the right choice not to intervene. Be a good witness, take a photo/video of the car and thief and provide it to the store employee or LE.

This situation is a no win for you because of all the unknowns.

First, depending on where you live even if they are caught they will more likely than not only receive a criminal citation instead of a trip to jail. If they did go to jail, again depending on where you live more likely than not because it is only a misdemeanor theft they would be book and released from jail with a future court date. Again, depending on where you live the local DA may not even prosecute because the case loads are so high it is not worth their time.

Secondly, if you are dealing with a legit bad dude and not some run of the mill shoplifter they probably have been through much worse situations than you confronting them. Guys with nothing to lose are extremely dangerous and don’t give two craps about you or anyone else in society. They are also likely armed and would take extreme measures for self preservation.

Say you did intervene and you stop the theft, guy goes to jail, and the store gets their stuff back, great. You may get a thank you for your efforts and you will probably feel like you made a difference for that moment, but in the grand scheme of things it really does make zero difference in society overall.

Now let’s play devils advocate to the situation, you confront the guy and a fight ensues. You pull your carry piece because now your in a fight for your life and shoot him. Guess what, you will more likely than not get sued by him or his family and possibly lose everything you’ve worked for. And they may likely win because you interjected yourself into the situation.

Or say he pulls first and you are severely injured or killed, leaving your wife without a husband and your kid without a dad. All for a shoplift.

If you want societal changes made you have to make the changes at a higher level than on the street.

Your intentions are spot on to jump in if someone is in danger of injury or loss of life, but for things like a shoplift just be a good witness. Sorry for the long response, rant over.

 

[bdg848]

Basically, I would only intervene if someone's safety is at stake....

 

[Marble]

For shoplifters, if I am by myself I'll confront them and prevent them from leaving if needed.

There's been one I caught that emptied the products from his backpack and then left the store after I followed him around made him uncomfortable.

Most of them are weak and do what you tell them. If one became violent, I would just let them do what they do. I'm not going to shoot or beat someone up over stuff like that.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

 

[Clovis]

One of my high school classmates intervened in a situation like this and was shot and killed on the spot, missing out on what would have been the majority of his life. There is a time to dig in and fight, but that isn't it for me and family present makes that even more so.

 

[DRP]

I worked in management for a large chain box store for 8 years, the company initially had loss prevention personnel onsite daily in plain clothes walking around the store looking for shoplifters, eventually the company reduced it down to one person covering 3 stores. The company basically took a small percentage of sales and put it into a savings account to pay for the loss of theft at the time they did inventory. In the long run it was cheaper for the company and less liability than having a loss prevention officer tackling people or paying a worker’s compensation claim because that employee got hurt or killed. Management was told stories of employees following thief’s out of the store and the employees getting beat up, stabbed, shot. One employee got pushed into a van and kidnapped then beat almost to death and left in the ditch on the side of the road. The companies do not care about you the employee or you the concerned citizen, they care about making money and running their business. Unfortunately theft loss is part of doing business, they look for ways to reduce their overall costs to do business and unfortunately it is cheaper to let these degenerates steal than pay employees to stop them.

 

[Antarctica]

You have a wife and kid that need you. Relax.

Such a bunch of pussies. F that. Shoot him and go home.

That's the real answer. But we can't always do what should be done.

That's what I want to say, but in reality, I may have done exactly what you did. I think it would have been hard to do nothing at all, but I have never seen that real time.

 

[tdhanses]

Buddy of mine got a pistol in the face while the guys buddy was yelling shoot him shoot him for intervening when a guy hit his girlfriend. Think about 10 or so years a go a guy intervened on a guy beating up his wife, killed him and then drove off.

I get this whole let’s stop crap but with todays laws and how crazy people are, guess you have to decide if they are worth more to your family being intervened then you are alive. Pretty easy answer, let the cops do their job.

 

[Antarctica]

Buddy of mine got a pistol in the face while the guys buddy was yelling shoot him shoot him for intervening when a guy hit his girlfriend. Think about 10 or so years a go a guy intervened on a guy beating up his wife, killed him and then drove off.

I get this whole let’s stop crap but with todays laws and how crazy people are, guess you have to decide if they are worth more to your family being intervened then you are alive. Pretty easy answer, let the cops do their job.

Christ.

We're ******.

'Let the cops do their job.'

They haven't. They won't.